Airborne laser fills vital need

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Airborne laser fills vital need, officer says
Albuquerque Tribune Col. Ellen M. Pawlikowski, who earlier this month assumed command of the Air Force's top weapons project, says its success ultimately will change the face of war. The Airborne Laser Attack Aircraft (officially the ABL, but some call it ALAA) is designed to use a powerful laser to destroy enemy ballistic missiles in midair shortly after launch. It is aimed primarily at countering the threat posed by an increasing number of rogue nations acquiring the capability of launching theater ballistic missiles, like the Russian-made Scuds that caused havoc in the Gulf War. But the project, whose 75-person Systems Program Office Pawlikowski now directs at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, faces some survival issues of its own. Most immediately it is a target on the administration's budget-cutting radar screen. A big target. The $1.2 billion project currently is outfitting a Boeing 747 freighter with a missile-launch detection and tracking system; a Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser; and an adaptive optic system that instantly corrects for atmospheric distortions and keeps the laser cannon accurately on target. After a change-of-command ceremony in which she accepted not only the ceremonial flag for the project but also its high-profile objectives, Pawlikowski said she is up for the challenge and still hopes the Airborne Laser Attack Aircraft will meet its demonstration target of shooting down a launched missile in 2003. A chemical engineer who earned her degree the University of California at Berkeley, the 44-year-old colonel previously has served in a variety of capacities, including deputy director of the Global Powers Program at Air Force headquarters. Tribune: How important is the Airborne Laser Attack Aircraft project? Pawlikowski: It's an exciting program that is on the cutting edge of technology and that is bringing a vital capability to the Air Force: a weapon that will be able to shoot down missiles over the enemy's own territory very soon after launch. It's a real weapons system that will be revolutionary and that will give us a tactical advantage because nobody else has it. Tribune: If that's true, why is this program facing budget cuts? Pawlikowski: The Air Force was faced with some tough budget decisions, and the chief has asked for a $92 million cut in next year's budget. We will be able to continue the program but at a slower pace. If the cut remains, it probably does mean a delay in the shoot-down demonstration in three years, pushing it back a year or two. But, no, we won't go away. The Air Force is solidly behind this project and we want to do the shoot-down, to demonstrate this capability is real, as quickly as we can. Tribune: But is this weapon important to the country, and why should citizens and taxpayers care about it? Pawlikowski: The importance to the country is tremendous. If we can bring it to the battlefield, an adversary is less likely to use their missiles. It prevents their capability to threaten our forces or our allies and it increases our ability to make and keep peace in the world. If we have it, our adversaries say why shoot (a missile) if it's not going to get there. So it's not just a new weapon; it's a deterrent because we not only can shoot that missile down, but while it's in flight above the country that fired it. And they have to think about that in terms of what's going to fall back down on them. Also, direct energy (lasers and other intense focused beams of energy) has many applications. The ABL -- which is a clean, effective and efficient weapon that is much cheaper than other weapons developed for the same purpose -- is the flagship for directed energy. I think it will open the door for other applications of directed energy in the military. But first we have to show we can do it, that it really does work. Tribune: How do you like Albuquerque as your new home? Pawlikowski: I'm really enjoying it and New Mexico. Aside from a little altitude adjustment, so far it's been very nice. This is my first time living in Albuquerque, though I have been here before from time to time. I like it because it's friendly, a relaxed place and a really refreshing change from Washington. Interview With . . . appears Mondays in The Tribune.

-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), April 18, 2000

Answers

The program has been around for some time, started back in 77 but under a different name. My husband worked as the project manager back then.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), April 18, 2000.

Consider the technology changes in the last 23 years. Its got to be like climbing off a horse and getting into a new Porsche. Didn't computers have vacuum tubes back then?

But let's say the laser does work. What's the cost of a fleet of jets patrolling rogue nations 24/7? Sounds like a scheme for the Air Force to "get its share".

-- John (littmannj@aol.com), April 18, 2000.


Not a comment on the merits of the actual Air Force project, but a plug for a movie:

In the 1985 comedy "Real Genius" (starring Val Kilmer, Gabe Jarret, Michelle Meyrink and William Atherton), students at a Caltech-parody college discover that the laser lab project on which their professor has them working is intended to develop a secret airborne laser weapon.

(In the film, the laser is to be used on ground targets. A film-within-the-film demonstrates, after other capabilities such as tank destruction, vaporization from afar of an unfriendly foreign leader as he sunbathes on his patio. While that is presented humorously, the thoughtful film viewer will pick up on a theme of potential unofficial weapon useage.)

The students, outraged at this perversion of their work, manage to sabotage the airborne laser's test so that the weapon's aim and power are shifted from destruction of surplus vehicles on a military proving ground to a hilarious ... uhmmm ... "occupation" of the professor's home by a certain snack food. The good guys have fun, and the bad guys get their comeuppances.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), April 19, 2000.


Now, some serious comments directed to the actual project:

>is designed to use a powerful laser to destroy enemy ballistic missiles in midair shortly after launch.

There are some tradeoffs here. The lower in the atmosphere the laser beam travels, the more that dust, water vapor, smog, and just the thicker nitrogen and oxygen will absorb energy from the beam -- energy that thus will not reach the target. These absorptions are not the same at all wavelengths, so the weapon would be designed to emit wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation (although the "l" in "laser" stands for "light", lasers are not restricted to the visible range of light wavelengths) that would be least absorbed by stuff in the air before the beam reached its target. (The target's absorption of energy from the beam would also depend on wavelength, so there'd have to be a tradeoff for that.)

So a laser beam weapon would be more effective when aimed through higher, rather than lower, layers of air.

OTOH, the longer after launch a laser beam is aimed at a missile, the faster that missile would be moving (that is, up to the point where the missile's rockets stop firing). That probably would affect the difficulty of aiming the beam accurately.

>an adaptive optic system that instantly corrects for atmospheric distortions and keeps the laser cannon accurately on target

Adaptive optics would have an easier time as the target gets higher, so that the atmosphere between optics and target is thinner and bends light less and less.

>a weapon that will be able to shoot down missiles over the enemy's own territory very soon after launch

Well, that depends not only on how soon after launch the beam could reach the missiles with enough destructive power, but also on the launch location. When a missile's launched from close to the border of a small country (or from close to the border of a large country, come to think of it), it doesn't take long for it to be over someone else's territory.

>it's a deterrent because we not only can shoot that missile down, but while it's in flight above the country that fired it.

That depends on how soon after launch the beam can destroy the missile. Don't forget what I pointed out above -- the sooner after launch, the more difficult it is to get a destructive level of energy delivered to the target by the beam.

If we reach the point of having a laser weapon that can reliably destroy missiles very close to their lauchings, then we also have a weapon that can be used against ground targets. Since most ground targets would be moving slower than missiles in flight, more precise aiming would be possible, making up for greater absorption of beam energy by the lower, thicker atmosphere.

At what point does a beam capable of destroying a missile right above its launch pad become a beam capable of incinerating an unfriendly foreign leader as he sunbathes on his patio? Or if you consider that too absurd, substitute the blinding of a bunch of enemy soldiers as they are assembled for an attack.

>Also, direct energy (lasers and other intense focused beams of energy) has many applications. The ABL -- which is a clean, effective and efficient weapon that is much cheaper than other weapons developed for the same purpose -- is the flagship for directed energy. I think it will open the door for other applications of directed energy in the military.

Yup.

So start thinking about possible applications. War is hell.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), April 19, 2000.


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